


Come Home

by Samuraiter



Category: Nobunagun
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-22
Updated: 2014-06-22
Packaged: 2018-02-05 18:54:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1828612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Samuraiter/pseuds/Samuraiter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After years of fighting the EIOs, Sio gets a rare chance to go home for a little while.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Come Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DarkSeraphim](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkSeraphim/gifts).



> This can be thought of as a coda to the longer-term events surrounding the series. I, myself, can think of no better way for _Nobunagun_ to end, honestly.

Three years had passed since the confrontation at Upala. The EIOs had been all but defeated there, though their invasion had continued, resulting in a long chain of incidents that had prevented DOGOO and its Holders from resting for more than a handful of days at a time. Sio and her companions had been on the move since then, heading from mission to mission at a pace their observers – soldiers, journalists, but also civilians eager to follow their heroes – could not match. She had stopped keeping track of the number of monsters they had killed in pursuit of all those victories.

And then, as if by magic, the missions came to a close. All EIO activity had ceased, be it from the original organisms, or from the variants that had been developed by one anti-DOGOO organization or another over the years. The situation came down from the high alert that it had held for over a decade, and the Holders all returned to their bases, not to have their units disbanded, but at least to consider the possibility of leave while their non-powered colleagues analyzed all of the contingencies. For most of them, they had been on duty for so long that a temporary return to normal life seemed bizarre.

Not to Sio, though. She had not neglected her contacts, and there had been one in particular that had served as her chief motivation since the incident at Taiwan that had started the whole business of her joining DOGOO as Nobunagun. As soon as she received notice that she had permission to go home for a little while, the texts started flying, and, after a journey back to Japan involving a boat, a plane, and several trains, she found herself in front of a door that she had never seen before. There had been no way, after all. Before, she had too many things to do. But not any more.

She asked herself, on the train taking her home, why she did not go back to see her parents first, to go and flop on her old bed next to a stack of military magazines (and one incomplete F-35 model that she never had enough glue to properly finish). She asked herself, too, why she did not invite any of her companions to accompany her. Jack might not have gone, being Jack, but both Newton and Cyx had expressed a strong interest in meeting her family. That might happen at another time, but, first, she had to get back to Kaoru, the first person she had saved as Nobunagun.

Kaoru had years to go yet before she became a full-fledged nurse, but she had made good progress, and all of the incidents that had struck Japan had provided her more experience in the field than many students got to have in a full course of study. She had moved into the apartment a year ago to be close to the school that had accepted her, though she rarely got to be at home, often sleeping at a hospital or helping at one of the shelters that had been constructed around the city specifically for survivors of EIO attacks. But she had made certain to be home on the day that Sio came to visit.

Sio raised her hand to knock, but the door opened before she could. Seeing pictures of Kaoru via e-mail had been one thing, but it always thrilled Sio to see her in person. She seemed the same, at least on the surface, but she had dark circles beneath her eyes, and her smile had a wan quality to it, hinting at all the working and studying she had done. But she still smiled, and she still opened her arms to give Sio the warm hug she had been hoping to get. Nothing had changed between the two of them. The world had changed around them, perhaps, but not the private world between them.

"Welcome home," Kaoru said, gesturing to a futon that looked so unused as to almost be new. Not welcome _back_ , but welcome _home_ – a place that Sio had never seen before, but that represented _home_ because it had Kaoru in it. Whether or not Kaoru herself seemed aware of that significance did not show in her face, but she laughed when Sio jumped on the futon and faceplanted into one of the pillows, spreading out and happy to occupy a piece of furniture that was not DOGOO-issue. (Not that her bunk on the _Alex Logan_ did not have a good mattress for crashing, but —)

"Good to be home," Sio replied, though it sounded more like _mmf-mmf_ due to the pillow. She rolled over and sat up, her hair a mess, as it had always been, both in and out of battle. (Newton had attempted to fix it for her using a very specialized application of her gravity ability, but the result had been one of the strangest-looking bowl cuts that Sio had seen outside of a manga.) Kaoru did not laugh at that, but her smile changed from wan to warm, reminding Sio of how she had looked the day she came to see her in the hospital after one of her early missions – deep down, always the same Kaoru.

And Sio still had no idea what to do. She could ask her how she was doing, but they had already established that through all of their texts back and forth. She could invite her to go out for a cup of ramen, but neither one of them had any desire to get up and go and all the get-up-and-go that characterized their day-to-day lives. So she simply returned the smile in kind, and Kaoru took her by the hand, and that was all right. The silence that stretched between them was warm, comfortable, and hinting not at all of the world that lay outside the walls and all the troubles that might still lay in wait.

Sio had read, once, that, for a soldier at war, no feeling compared to coming home. Sitting there, next to Kaoru, she finally understood that feeling of welcome for herself.

**END**.


End file.
